Beyond
by Soxes in Boxes
Summary: He cannot imagine that she could walk with him down this road... but she has always had a way of taking him by surprise. Post-game Solas/F!Lavellan, rated K for very mild sexual reference and one, mild swear. Written specifically for Hurricane Ginger and her heart-breaking posts of sad David Tennant... Don't cry David Tennant!


It all belongs to Bioware of course, I'm just mucking about in their wonderful sandbox.

* * *

If we must part,  
Then let it be like this.  
Not heart on heart,  
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;  
But touch mine hand and say:  
"Until to-morrow or some other day,  
If we must part".

Words are so weak  
When love hath been so strong;  
Let silence speak:  
"Life is a little while, and love is long;  
A time to sow and reap,  
And after harvest a long time to sleep,  
But words are weak."  
_  
~Ernest Christopher Dowson_

* * *

He'd walked this path many times before; the twisting, swirling colors and misty shapes recognizable and memorable to him in a way that nothing in the physical world had ever been. He slowed his steps now, and let the old, familiar pain roll over him and break in shallow waves against his heart. There would be nothing here but echoes and faded rememberings of what could never be again, and yet, he could not stop himself from returning. This place had always been a haven for him, a retreat from both the mundane and the overwhelming aspects of life outside of the Fade; a place where he could sink into the simple joy of wisdom, of knowledge shared with a being who gladly joined him in all the happiness and sorrow he'd ever brought before her.

Without his friend, this place was not the same. The shifting, unreal nature of the landscape failed to coalesce into the old, remembered patterns. Environments of learning and study, all long forgotten now, and lost to time. He could probably reshape this place into its old form, he remembered it well enough, but the thought of trying made him tired, and so he sat down instead, and let the feel of the place wash through him.

"I thought I might find you here."

He opened his eyes, shocked by the presence of another in this small, lonely corner of the Fade.

"I've been looking for you for quite some time, you know."

The matter-of-fact voice held a measure of gentle reproach, but none of the rancor he expected. She always had been able to surprise him.

She was so bright, his love, and exceptional in so many ways, but to track him here. To find him in spite of all the pains he'd taken to conceal himself and his true nature… It should have been beyond her. There was no doubt though, that it was her. He had the scent of her, the feel of her soul, stamped forever in his memory. No spirit, no matter how clever, could ever imitate the brilliant spark of her. "How did you find this place?"

The warm cascade of her laugh tumbled into the air around them and brightened the desolate area like a flock of starlings calling out their joy to the morning sun. Her smile was impish and satisfied, the way he remembered it could be after she finished tweaking the noses of a group of haughty, unsuspecting human nobles, or after she successfully tumbled him into her bed, despite his misgivings and whatever intentions he'd had before she set her mind to distracting him.

"There's a bit more to me now than you may remember," her voice should have reminded him of all he'd lost to his own pride and folly, but the sound of it was a balm to his weary ears, and all the time and pain and distance between them faded into nothing as she spoke. "It's taken me a while, but I'm finally beginning to learn from all these voices in my head."

She cocked her head to the side and peered at him, a question in her eyes. "They aren't so urgent now, as they were at first. They've been… muted, ever since the day we cast down the '_Elder One_,'" and this she said with a faint sneer for the pretensions of her long vanquished foe. "It's almost as if Mythal has changed somehow. Gone to sleep, or maybe just gone away." She shrugged, "I wouldn't put it past her. After all, her vengeance has been more important to her than the entire elven race for centuries beyond counting. From what I've learned, The People may have been better off without her all these years, anyhow." A frown tugged the corners of her lips down and her gaze went unfocused. Her jaw clenched slightly and the rest of her features slackened, as if she were concentrating on the words of some third participant in this conversation, words only she could hear. All at once, her face snapped to attention and she stared at him as if she were truly seeing him for the first time. "It's you," there was wonder in her voice, and undeniable surprise. "She's _with_ you… but not. How can this be?"

A part of him, a part that he recognized as not truly _him_ but which was now inseparable from the rest, felt the stirring of her blood, responded to the song of it, recognized in it the calling of a servant to her master. He crushed the feeling as ruthlessly and viciously as any enemy, denying utterly the part of himself that insisted on the righteousness of it all. _She offered herself willingly, drank of the pool and gained the power, it was his __**right**__ to command her now. Nothing came without a cost, and the All-Mother has ever demanded a high price for her favors_. Sickened by the thought of her trapped beneath the weight of a promise she could not begin to understand, he pushed the thoughts away.

It was then he noticed that she dealt with her own struggle. Her gaze was still riveted to his, but her focus was clearly internal. He felt an odd pulling at his core, as if some small piece of himself was straining to break away and fly free of him. He nearly brought a hand to his stomach before he realized what, exactly, he was feeling. She was trying to break the bond she had made when she consumed the waters at the Temple of Mythal. He marveled at her resolve as sweat began to shine on her brow and her breathing came sharper. He'd thought her ignorant of the nature of the pact she'd entered into, but if she had been unaware at the time of its creation, she understood it perfectly now.

He felt a peculiar wrench, and barked out a laugh as she slowly loosened her hold on the invisible tie which bound her to the will of the Goddess sleeping inside him.

"I haven't quite figured it out yet," she admitted as a wobbly smile crossed her lips, "but I'll be damned if I spend my whole life obligated to the whims of a bloody dragon-woman."

His laugh deepened, and he shook his head in rueful delight at her undaunted irreverence, even as the part of him which longed to dominate her, to bend her utterly to his will, howled in fury. "How little you have changed, vhenan."

"More than you may think, old wolf" she answered softly.

He'd known, somewhere deep within himself, that she must be aware of who he was, _what_ he was, when he felt the fire of her connection with the restless, dreaming soul that was now a part of him. How else could she have found him here, in this place, even with the help of the memories of the countless servants who'd come before her? To hear her say it though, to give voice to the secret that had always lain between them, it was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. He treasured the memories of what they'd had, and kept them safe in his mind, stationary and timeless. As long as he did not go back, as long as they were apart, a piece of him could always cling to memories that were pure and free from the blight of his purpose, or her scorn. A piece of him could hold to the idea that he was not _alone_, that she was always somehow there, with him. Now though, things would change; how could they not? Even if she did not turn from him, nothing could ever be the same; and he could not hold back the fear that she _would _turn from him, that she would reject his plans and gaze upon the world-remade with the same sorrow and loss he had felt after he had awoken from his long slumber and saw the world altered beyond all recognition.

She'd never had any real use for the Old Gods, his shining one. She'd told him once, as they lay spent and exhausted, wrapped around each other under the blanket of the desert sky, that she respected the old stories, that she even saw the usefulness of them, but that she believed them to be no more than distorted tales of beings so ancient that The People no longer understood the true nature of them. That night on the Hissing Plains had been desperately cold, especially since they'd spread their bedrolls away from the camp fire, eschewing its heat in favor of privacy. She'd stayed wound tight around him after their lovemaking, for warmth, she'd said, and regaled him with silly stories of her youth. In the whimsy of the moment, he'd sketched a constellation in the sky with his fingers, and told her the old story of the gods it represented that he'd learned as a boy. Her face had gone serious then, and for a moment, she spoke with some gravity about weightier matters.

_It's good to understand and honor what came before, but sometimes I think our people have been so desperate to reclaim our past, that we forget to look to the future. _Her face had been thoughtful, and almost wistful, _it's easier just to call them Gods, or Creators_, she'd said, _than try to face the idea that our people were once so potent that our rulers could walk the Beyond untouched, and create wonders that persist even today. We've already lost so much, how could we bear it if we knew that we'd lost the kind of power that can shape worlds?_

He'd argued with her, even though he knew better than she the truth of her words. _But how can the beaten man survive, if he does not remember the dizzying heights of his victories, and aspire to them once more?_

_By also forgetting the crushing lows of his defeats, of course,_ she'd quipped. _I hear a good bottle of wine can be useful for that part._

Their conversation had ended then, the irresistible mixture of her temporarily grave demeanor and light heart had stirred him once more to passion, but the sweet memory now tasted bitter to him. Even if she did not turn from him and what he would bring to pass, how could he ask her to follow him into the abyss?

He was pulled from his thoughts abruptly as a touch, cool and feather-light on his chin, tipped his head down to hers.

"You always did think too much" and she kissed him then, a sweet thing at first, with lips barely touching, but it grew more heated as she seemingly lost herself in the taste of him.

When at last she pulled away from him, she had a determined look in her eye. "I've found you again, ma sa'lath, and I can promise you, it will not be so easy for you to be rid of me this time."

He met her eyes, and saw there something he had not dared to hope for since time beyond reckoning. Something hard melted within him then, he surrendered to her will, as he supposed he always had, and he lowered his forehead to hers. "Come with me then, vhenan, and let us travel this road together."

As their footsteps retreated from the old place, he felt, for the first time in a long time, that his parting from the Fade this night would be sweeter than his entering.

* * *

Author's note: I'm not big on Happily Ever After's. I like them, when other people write them, but I always have a really hard time imagining my crazy, exceptional, heroic, and zany characters settling down into the kind of mundane domestic bliss which, admittedly, I enjoy on a day to day basis. Maybe its a weird, character/self separation thing? Maybe I just have Varric syndrome and all my stories tend to end in tragedy, or at least heartbreak? I don't know, but I do know that the kind of passion I imagine for my characters, both original and the one's borrowed from other authors (Bioware's DA writing team, in this instance) is so bright, so intense and unique, that it has no real choice but to burn out. It's so fierce that it feels more painful to me to imagine it burning down and continuing as glowing coals and embers than it does to quench it at its height; and that way the memory is always of the brightest, fiercest, hottest part of the whole encounter. If only my characters could talk, they'd probably hate my guts for it and call me (happily married for ten years now) a dirty hypocrite, but oh well. That said, this happy-ever-after is written for the delightfully optimistic lovers of true-love-happily-ever-after-unicorns-and-rainbows endings in the Solas thread of the Bioware forums. The world needs more people who believe in HEA, and I'm grateful that you pushed me into writing up a little ficlet that falls somewhat outside of my comfort zone. I hope you enjoy it.


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